I like to cook. I
love to eat. I married a man who loves to cook and likes to eat. We have two
teen sons, so you can guess that there is a lot of food consumed in my house
And cooked. I’m kind
of amused by this “clean eating” movement. It’s a great idea, but for me it’s
just called eating. When the kids were younger I used the occasional packaged
rice or a can of soup in something. Most of the time they didn’t like it. My
older son loves steamed rice. The kind you get from the Chinese restaurant. He’d
eat a bowl of that all by itself.
A few years ago, I
decided to cut out all of those products completely. I make things of my own
like enchilada sauce or even taco seasoning.
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| Author Chris Redding |
The upshot of this
is we have started our own binder of recipes. Our family cookbook you might
want to call it. When each son moves out, he will get a copy of it. And, yes,
both boys can cook basic stuff. Neither has taken to it, but I wasn’t a fan of
cooking at that age either. In college I lived on boxed mac and cheese, Hamburger
Helper and pizza from where I worked. I didn’t really
start cooking until I got married.
I find cooking to be
a lot like writing.
You have ingredients, which are your character and your plot. You have to cook them, or in the case
of a book, make those ingredients do what you want for the story. I usually
finish a draft, then let it sit. This is the meat resting after it’s cooked and
before you cut it. The revision process is the putting more salt or pepper if
the dish needs it.
Now, that I have you
all hungry, I’m going to share a recipe. This is an appetizer, great for a
party. Any person whose house I have brought this to asked me to bring it
the next time.
Cheese Puff Appetizers
Ingredients:
2C shredded cheddar cheese
2C shredded low fat cheese
1 cup butter melted
2 C all purpose flour
2 dashes any hot sauce, any heat level
1 jar pitted green olives or can of sliced jalapenos
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a cookie sheet
In a small bowl, mix together cheeses, butter, flour, and Worcestershire
sauce. Knead the dough. Pinch the dough into small balls, flatten them in the
palm of your hand, then wrap an olive in the dough. Arrange the wrapped olives
on the cookie sheet.
Bake for 15 minutes or slightly brown.
You can use all regular fat cheese, but the texture is better with some
lower fat cheese because of the moisture content. I found the olives from the
olive bar stay too wet to use for this. A substitute if you don’t like olives
would be a jalapeno pepper, but I’d cut down on the hot sauce then.
Bio:
Chris Redding lives in New Jersey with her husband, two sons, one dog
and three rabbits. She graduated from
Penn State with a degree in journalism. She teaches online writing
workshops and a creative writing course for a local continuing education
organization. When she isn’t writing or teaching, she works part time for a
local winery.
Waking up next to a dead
guy can ruin your whole day.
When a wise-cracking interior decorator wants to
put her past behind her, the dead body of the mayor’s son makes her realize
that won’t happen too easily.
A conservative former computer geek for the FBI
is holding on too tightly to his past. His wife died under suspicious
circumstances, and he believes the decorator has the information to solve the
case. Unfortunately for him, she isn’t speaking until a series of events
convinces her she needs protection, especially when her biggest secret threatens
to destroy both of their lives.
Originally published as A View to a
Kilt.
Thanks for visiting, Chris! I also love to cook--for me it's very creative.
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